Don't Indulge Next to Me, Please

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

“You people have no sense of courtesy for your friends. I’m not asking for a law here, I’m asking that people that supposedly care about me act like they do.”

Courtesy goes both ways, Cess. What’s more rude - someone engaging in a legal activity that doesn’t harm anyone else (like having a drink if they’re of age) or someone trying to control another person’s behavior?

There is a difference between caring for other people and trying to run their lives to suit your own tastes.

You have some understandably powerful issues regarding what happened with your father, but Cess, not everyone that smokes tobacco or pot or has the occasional drink is going to become an addicted, wife-beating, tuberculosis ridden loss.

Here’s a rule of thumb I’d like you to try out:

  • does someone else’s activity put you in physical danger? (They’re smoking near you and you have asthma. They’ve been drinking and insist on driving.) If yes, then you have the right to insist that they stop. If they don’t, you have the right to throw a fit.

  • does someone else’s activity break your rules when both of you are on your territory? (At your house or in your car). If yes, then you may insist that they stop, and if they refuse, they get to leave.

  • is someone else’s activity bothering you in a public place or a private place that belongs to neither of you? Then you get to explain that it bothers you, why it bothers you and ask them once - ONCE - to desist. If they do, then they respect your feelings. If they don’t, then they don’t and you need to decide not to be around them anymore.

  • is someone else’s activity bothering you when you’re in their place (their home or car)? Then you get to explain that it bothers you and why. They will desist or not, their choice. And you may draw your conclusions about their character/friendship/respect for your feelings on your own.

Try it, Cess, just for a little while, please. I think it’s a fair way to do things because it goes both ways.

“Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing yourself is enlightenment.” - Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher

42

Cess, I’m about to say something that’s going to piss you off, but good. I know that you’ll be miffed, because if someone would have said this to me when I was 17, I would have been pissed about it myself. So here it is:

People like your friends are one MAJOR reason that Byron and I stopped going to Rocky. It starts off innocently (woohoo, transvestites, cult classic, rebellion, blahblahblah) and then the new, “pure” crowd starts mixing with the old seniors and suddenly, the integrity of the whole ship is corrupted.

I’m not saying that Rocky Horror, as a movie is to blame for increased “indulgence” in underaged people. There is something to it, as a fed-up “senior” I know what I’m talking about, but I fail to find the words to explain it for any of the people who’ve never been or never gotten into it. Suffice it to say, everything you do influences you. If you are resistant to the changes that have occurred in your friends, you can count on one of two things:

  1. They’ll get sick of you and won’t be so accommodating anymore, thereby pushing you out of the “circle”.
  2. You’ll get fed up enough to extract yourself from the circle.

It’s a little off-topic, I know, but I felt it needed to be said. I maintain what I said in my first response up near the top, and reading through this thread it seems that “indulgers” and “non-indulgers” alike agree: Your house, your rules. Someone else’s house, their rules. I understand that in that particular instance you were far away from home and had nowhere else to go, but for general purpose, from now on, live and let live. If you don’t like the goings-on, leave. If the goings-on are consistently to your disliking, then it really is time to take up with a new crowd, because the crowd you run with has made it obvious that they’re not going to change in order to please you. And you really shouldn’t expect them to do so. Regardless of whether it’s healthy or legal or NOT, what they put into their bodies is entirely their choice. As far as I’m concerned, it’s high time (no pun intended) that you stop worrying about what other people are doing and start concentrating on what you’re doing. I know you just graduated high school, concentrate on whatever your plans are now (college, travel, work, whatever) and take sometime to be completely self-involved (NOT self-centered.)

–Chris
(smoker, extraordinarily occasional social drinker, non-indulger in illegal drugs)

43

If you don’t put yourself in the situation, you won’t have to worry about people “indulging” around you. Simple explanation to a simple answer. Oh yeah, wanna smoke a bowl?

44

Wow, it only took 8 months to come up with that snappy reply?
Talk about a blast from the past (seeing that thread again)
Zette

“If I had to live your life, I’d be begging to have someone pop out both my eyes. Just in case I came across a mirror.” - android209 (in the Pit)
Zettecity
Voted “Most Empathetic”- can you believe that?